Hemmings Find of the Day – 1957 Buick Special Estate Wagon

While it might not have as much flash and chrome – or the 300-hp four-barrel version of the Buick nailhead V-8 – as some of the other Buick wagons from the same model year, this two-tone 1957 Buick Special Estate Wagon for sale on Hemmings.com still has its fair share, all of which appears to still be in great shape after the 25 years since the car’s restoration. From the seller’s description:

This car is rare and is in great condition. No rust! Last restoration was completed in 1987. The mileage has rolled over from 99,999 to 5118. The owner who completed the restoration before I purchased it was the president of the Buick Club of America. This car was driven in the Great American Race along Route 66. This vehicle has a 364 V8 nailhead engine backed by a switch pitch automatic transmission, all of which is in great working order. The paint and chrome are in excellent condition! The exterior is yellow and white with chrome trim. I believe that show-chrome finishing was completed for the chrome refinishing on this car. The body of the vehicle is in perfect condition, no damage that I can find. The floor pans are rust-free and clean. The interior and the headliner are in excellent condition throughout, with no signs of wear. The interior colors are black and white with chrome trimmings. The old tube radio works great after the tube warms up. All the gauges work correctly. All the windows are in great shape and roll up and down well. The engine starts right up every time and runs great! The transmission shifts as it should, no howls or whines. The brakes and steering components are all working properly and in great condition! This car drives just like it would have when it was brand new!

Paladinsays:

January 24, 2014 9:10 am

Wow, This just a beautiful, beautiful car! The color combo works for me a lot. Buicks of that era had the best looking wagons, bar none. I myself was never a big fan of gangster whitewalls, then and now. But I am not sure this one would look right without them. Maybe some blackwalls with wire wheels?

Paladinsays:

January 24, 2014 9:43 am

Scottsays:

January 24, 2014 9:12 pm

They are only gangster whitewalls if the car couldn’t have them new… like if these were on a ’75 Buick.

Personally with that delightful little bit of red wheel peeking out I don’t think you can do better than the stock caps with wide whitewalls on these cars. And if you have a car you are actually going to drive wires a complete PITA to keep looking nice.

Scotty Gsays:

January 24, 2014 9:27 am

Good grief, what a stunner! $30,000 for this or for a soulless new vehicle, hmmm.. I’ve never heard of a “switch pitch” transmission, I’ll have to research that a bit. Could that possibly be a factory color? I’m guessing that it’s not since it has a black interior, but who knows. The yellow and the red rims and the red stripe on the chrome; wow. That’s about the most gorgeous color combo that I’ve seen in quite a while.
This is Scotty G and I approve this car!

Paul, NYCsays:

January 24, 2014 10:15 am

Yes, it’s a factory color. I had a friend in high school who drove a 57 Roadmaster convertible in this same color combo. Don’t forget that in those days many cars had 16 or 18 colors available, unlike the six dull colors most cars have now.

Scotty Gsays:

January 24, 2014 10:23 am

Fantastic! Of those six “colors” on modern vehicles you speak about, four of them are tones. Navy Blue and Maroon. and maybe Red seem to be the only actual colors they have anymore, other than a few makers going out on a limb. I talk a good fight but our vehicles are white, white, silver and silver. Zzzzzzzz…

Howard Arbituresays:

January 24, 2014 10:32 am

Hi Paul, I know, beautiful. We’ve been over this and over this. My brother recently bought a new Malibu,( with that stupid non disableable stop/start feature) and before I even saw it, I said let me guess, it’s either silver or black. He said black, but METALLIC black. GOOD GRIEF!

Autobug2says:

January 24, 2014 11:11 am

Scotty Gsays:

January 24, 2014 2:03 pm

A few companies have quite a selection of colors, like Subaru, Ford, Fiat and some others, but most have navy blue and maroon for actual colors, or maybe if you’re lucky, a light-silvery-blue or light-silvery-green.

Howard Arbituresays:

January 24, 2014 9:53 am

Autobug2says:

January 24, 2014 9:54 am

Howard Arbituresays:

January 24, 2014 9:29 am

This is another sweet car, I’ve always wondered why they put “1957” on the grill. It doesn’t seem to correspond with any kind of anniversary( does it?), as not many cars had that.( remember checking taillights for years?) I’ve seen anniversary’s on horn buttons, but not on grills. I like looking in the background of these photos, looks like they have a bunch of other cool cars.

Paladinsays:

January 24, 2014 9:41 am

IN RE: taillights. I as well as lots of other kids, could tell what year, make and model a car was solely by the taillights, day or night. Could at least up into the 70’s. Bet you could too. On family car rides I was quizzed sometimes, and was always right back then…Oh, wait, I’m STILL always right! About EVERYTHING! Now if I could just convince wifey and kids…

Autobug2says:

January 24, 2014 9:49 am

You checked the stamped year of the car on taillamp lenses too Howard?! And here I thought I was the only one. That’s how I taught myself; did that from the age of 3 or 4. Mom used to recall I did that!

Badgerpaulsays:

January 24, 2014 10:32 am

Bill Fieldsays:

January 24, 2014 1:54 pm

HS buddy of mine had a ’56 Special 4 door hardtop. The badge on the center of the trunk said 1956 Buick Special. I always thought that was cool. I didn’t know they put it on the grille too, since my friends car had lost it’s grille somewhere along the way. I could really go for a mid ’50’s Buick.

CrownCoupe64says:

January 24, 2014 2:16 pm

DadzCadsays:

January 26, 2014 2:49 pm

I always suspected that stamping the date on the car was for status. In those days status could be measured by odd traits like the number of portholes your Buick had (OK, Ventiports) or stars your Pontiac displayed. But if you were not a car nut back then how could you tell if the neighbor’s car was a couple years old? The answer was simple: print it right on the car. Now if you drove to the club in 1959 in a Buick that was clearly marked 1957, well, you just weren’t keeping up. How embarrassing you would think; I must get a new Buick at once! After a couple years I think even GM felt it was a little too blatant.
Besides horn centers, Cadillac had Nineteen Fifty Six in chrome script over the glove compartment of that model year. Can anyone else think of dates displayed on cars besides these examples?

Autobug2says:

January 24, 2014 9:51 am

Saw this beauty the other day! I will say one thing: Where `57 Buick wagons go, you won’t find another in this shape at that price–esp. a hardtop Cabollero. It’s just unusual enough and the right color combo to grab plenty of eyes at a car show. This car begs for a sunny Sunday and a 2-lane country road.

Autobug2says:

January 24, 2014 11:16 am

Ian Merrimansays:

January 24, 2014 10:17 am

I bought a 1957 Buick Special from a car show in Vermont about 22 years ago.

It had been a New York Car and was low mileage.

Sort of Bronze with a white top, 4 door sedan.

I shipped it back to the UK and it was sold to a guy in London who did not have a driving licence!

That car taught me a lot about Buicks, in particular that the 57 is totally different to both the preceding year and those that followed it.

From a British point of view, our Vauxhall Cresta PA was General Motors British version of this car with its three part rear window on the sedan and the front doors that undercut the sides of the windscreen (sorry windshield!)

Grobysays:

January 24, 2014 2:11 pm

There was certainly some style sharing between British and US GMs. The symmetrical ’53 Oldsmobile dash with centre glovebox appeared, almost an identical copy on Vauxhall’s 1955 Velox E series line. Interior parts like window cranks, handbrake, door opener, gear lever knob etc in the ’55-’57 tri five Chevys showed up in the ’59-’62 Australian Holdens which also had an instrument cluster almost the same as the ’57 Chevy.
Given that the stylists moved countries regularly when with GM, this is probably not surprising.

Grobysays:

January 25, 2014 12:31 pm

Now I see it on a big screen, that ’57 Buick ‘magic ribbon’ speedo cluster turned up in near identical form – with the fuel and temp gauges below rather than above the speedo – in English Vauxhalls – ’61-62 PA Velox Cresta and 63-65 PB series – another example of GM idea sharing in that era. The ‘ribbon changed from green to amber at 30mph and amber to red at 60 – the AC units reportedly under-read and are very hard to fix if broken.

Autobug2says:

January 24, 2014 11:24 am

Howard Arbituresays:

January 24, 2014 3:19 pm

Hi bob, I noticed that too on the bumper exhaust. If that was my car, that’s the first thing I’d do. I thought that was so cool, exhaust coming out of the bumper. And thanks for the tail light clear up, I knew there came a time when that wasn’t reliable, but it made me feel like a “bigshot” for a while!

DougRsays:

January 24, 2014 11:26 am

Andrewsays:

January 24, 2014 11:45 am

if what the seller says is true this is a good example of a fairly priced car that’s unique and probably loads of space and fun to drive (it’s a Buick; don’t think about Italian handling) and will get everybody’s attention. It looks like a Special from the pictures, no chrome trim around the windows and so on. Buyers: Ignore the gas mileage. That’s not why you are buying it.

Speedsays:

January 24, 2014 4:31 pm

Back then,a lot of salesmen drove Buicks because they were reliable,comfortable over long distances,not too expensive to buy and got decent mileage. Mileage,per se,wasn’t as critical-it was more the number of “miles to the tank-full”,and Buicks,whether because of the engine’s economy or the size of the gas tanke,were among the best in that area.

January 24, 2014 3:33 pm

Larry Huffmansays:

January 24, 2014 7:33 pm

Nice looking car. Buick did not have a good sales year because of Chrysler’s Flight Sweep styling that debuted that year. The Buick looked nice, but not like a jet plane! As to the variable pitch transmission, there were a pair of stator blades, similar to the blade wheels in a jet engine. Wide open, they helped thrust. When you pressed the accelerator hard, the blades switched to a flatter angle and allowed the fluid flow to move much faster — kind of like open= torque, snapped shut = horsepower.

Tislingersays:

January 24, 2014 9:13 pm

Switch-pitch is a later 2 speed transmission design It has a variable pitch torque converter. Hydraulic pressure acting on a pressure switch activates an electrical switch that changes the angle of the vanes in the stator. It’s like having a locking converter. The valve bodies are calibrated to control downshifting above 20 miles per hour using the lock-up of the converter to get power to the road. Under the right circumstance this produces WOT and really hard acceleration. Switch pitch trans showed up in 1964 and ran until 68. After that the feature was incorporated in other GM.transmissions IIRC.
That Buick came with a Dyna-Flow of some kind. DFs had a different kind of simpler torque converter, one for each gear-set. A Triple Turbine had in fact 3 converters. Hydraulic fluid passes through them and there is no shifting. Each converter handles a certain percentage of torque as the fluid passes though 1,2,3. That’s why they feel so smooth. No shift occurs but penalty is sluggish acceleration and poor mileage.
That’s my understanding of it anyway.

January 25, 2014 11:32 am

raysays:

January 24, 2014 9:48 pm

…….one of the great Buick years, especially for wagons. Actually, a 1957 Caballero has been the only wagon of any sort on my bucket list for many, many years now…….but hacksawing the pillars off this one probably wouldn’t look quite right.to a trained eye.
Some interesting facts popped up while quickly researching the differences………both base Specials and Caballeros were part of the “Special” series, although Cabs got the hi-compression 4bbl engine…..I had always assumed Caballeros were Century models.
Also, the ’57 wagons were actually built by the Ionia Body Co,, an independent supplier to GM.
One other reality check….a Caballero with a 3/tree trans brought almost $100k……seven years ago!…….doubt they’ve gone down since then.

Wayne Z.says:

January 25, 2014 4:44 pm

Alvin Shiersays:

January 24, 2014 10:26 pm

Beautifull car. Buy it and be proud you are recycling something great and helping save all that plastic and crap from polluting the earth more. Everyone should be driving these. but what would the dopers use to replace their 300 mph Audi eights. That’s tough – so is this Buick. I would love to have it. And yes those whitewalls STAY!

Grobysays:

January 25, 2014 12:39 pm

I recall reading something on a Chevy forum awhile back that Chrysler’s Fire Sweep styling – out in ’57 – caught GM’s style chief (Earl?) and senior management off guard and led to the one-year-only ’58 GM full size and only two-year ’59/60 lines.

IIRC, the styling chiefs heard of the Fire Sweep plans after what became the three Tri-Five model years – ’55 redesign and ’56 and ’57 facelifts – were signed off for production with the usual divisions’ variations so there was a mad panic to come up with a complete redesign for the ’58 model year (the first 4-headlight B-bodies) which were signed off before the Fire Sweep models arrived at Chrysler.

The tale went that, when GM management saw those, the planned update of the ’58s for ’59 was scrubbed and the designers put to work on what became another full redesign for the ‘all-new ’59s. They lasted but two years and then came the two, much more conventional four-year redesigns – ’61-’64 and ’65-’68.

EarlWelchsays:

January 31, 2014 4:53 pm

Beautiful car! Sold too cheap. Worth at least $10,000 more. My ’58 Century Dynaflow trans. doesn’t “shift”, it will do quicker move-outs if the gas pedal is punched at least 1and 1/2 inches on take off. Also, the 4-barrel carb will open up and further improve acceleration. Unfortunately, it still isn’t enough to brag about, with me in it [164lbs.] it weighs a little over 4600 lbs., too much to overcome and be a “quick” car. But, I still love it, have had it for over 25 years now, unrestored and over 92,000 miles on it….